Odessa

ARTICLES ABOUT ODESSA BY DATE - PAGE 4

By BOB FRENCH and MARIA ELENA FERNANDEZ, Staff Writers, October 14, 1992

HOLLYWOOD -- A one-time job candidate for city manager is temporarily replacing former Finance Director Paul Wimberly, who has come under fire over the handling of a computer contract. William Brown, 51, took over Monday as finance director. He was called in by City Manager Robert Noe. For the next two to three months, Brown will oversee the finance department while city officials look for a permanent replacement for Wimberly. "A lot needs to be done," Brown said. "We`ll be finishing the year-end audit and make sure the city`s assets are being protected."

Beginning in the spring, cruise ships of the former Soviet Union will again by plying North American waters. Their sailings had been banned by President Reagan in 1981 after martial law was imposed in Poland. The voyages will be marketed by Odessa America Cruise Co., which is the product of a joint venture between International Cruise Center of Mineola, N.Y., and Black Sea Shipping Co. of Odessa in Ukraine, the largest of the former Soviet Republics. Two opportunities to sample cruising "Ukrainian style," with cuisine and entertainment of the region, are as follows: -- The 330-passenger Columbus Caravelle will offer a series of two-day party cruises and five-day sailings in the Gulf of Mexico from Tampa beginning April 12. Ports of call for five-day sailings are Cancun, Cozumel and Key West.

ODESSA, U.S.S.R -- Ilya Strashinsky has something up his sleeve. "We are preparing a bombshell for the mayor," he says with an impish grin as he sits in a corner office of the city`s only synagogue. Strashinsky`s bombshell is a list of 67 buildings and apartments in the heart of this graceful port city that Odessa`s increasingly confident Jewish community plans to reclaim as its property. "I know they won`t give back all 67 buildings at once," says Strashinsky, chairman of the Odessa Jewish Religious Community.

As a young girl in the 1950s, Sissy Spacek was aware of racial separation in her northeast Texas hometown. "I remember it vividly -- blacks in one part of town and whites in the other," she says in a telephone interview. "At the courthouse, there were separate drinking fountains and restrooms for blacks and whites. I thought it was curious, but I didn`t question it. I was so young that I was very accepting of the way things were." But the child wanted to know what she was missing. "I went into a black ladies` room when I was 5 or 6 because I was curious about what was going on there.

The H.F. duPont Winterthur Museum, Wilmington, Del., famous for its collection of 18th century American furniture, plans to exhibit a significant collection of mid-19th century furniture. The Richard and Gloria Manney Foundation has sent 71 pieces of high style Victorian furniture to the museum on long-term loan. The furniture, most of it made by New York cabinetmaker John Henry Belter in the 1850s, will be displayed at the Brick Hotel in Odessa, Del., beginning next spring. The Brick Hotel Gallery is part of Historic Houses of Odessa, owned and administered by Winterthur Museums and Gardens.